A chance to share the joys and pain – mostly pain – of supporting Leyton Orient

15 October 2011

Leyton Orient 1 Bury 0, 15/10/11

A game in which... Orient had so many chances to score it was almost as if Gary Barlow had wandered into Faces Nightclub, Gants Hill, on Ladies-4-Free night. Yes, after a pretty tepid first half the Os had the X Factor in the second, creating plenty up front and remaining solid at the back. On such simple foundations games are won, and although the Os should have converted at least another goal or two, three wins in three suggests that the diabolical start to the season is now becoming as distant a memory as Kate Thornton's career.

Moment of magic... The first half moment when Dean Cox managed to chest a 40-yard pass from Matthew Spring around a Bury defender to play himself in for a run at goal. Although he had a relatively quiet game by his own high standards, the pint-sized midfielder is still the Leona Lewis in a team of otherwise forgotten X Factor winners.

Moment of madness... The second half moment when Kevin Lisbie - in the penalty area with clear sight of goal - dawdled for so long on the ball that Bury's Efe Sodje had enough time to run a few personal errands before calmly dispossessing the Orient striker. Don't get me wrong, Lisbie put in a hard-working shift, but in front of goal today he was about as deadly as a Dannii Minogue put down.

Knight in shining armour... It was a good team performance, with much-improved displays from Leon McSweeney and David Mooney, plus a faultless shift from Terrell Forbes. But at the heart of it was that man Stephen Dawson again, who ran himself into ground to such a degree that they're going to need to call in a bulldozer to dig him out again.

Pantomime horse... No one had a particularly bad game, although Scott Cuthbert did nearly hari-kari the ball off his shin and into his own net at the death. And while Lee Butcher kept a clean sheet and made some tidy saves, he still looks as panicked as a talent show contestant who's forgotten his lyrics whenever crosses are floating in.

In the dug out... It looks like Big Russ has got his mojo back after spending the first couple of months of the season sulking about not being allowed the chance to get Barnsley relegated. His 4-2-3-1 formation - otherwise known as 'Give it to Coxy and hope for the best' - seems to be paying dividends, and with Jimmy Smith soon to come back to take the anonymous midfielder role from Tom Clarke things are looking up.

A word on the opposition... 'You can't cure ugliness' shouted a West Stand wag as Bury's Mark Hughes ran to the touchline to receive treatment. But Bury weren't an unattractive side and could certainly consider themselves unlucky not to have snatched a point when they hit the woodwork in the final minutes.

Meanwhile on Twitter... Busy week for the injured Jimmy Smith. In between waking up and going to bed he also had to get a new phone. And since there's only so much cognitive activity one footballing brain can cope with, something had to give - and in this case it was his Twitter password: 'New twitter New phone 4got me other password lol oh #LEGOOOOO' he wrote on his new account. In future then, for gripping real-time news of haircuts and training, then @Sm1thy_JD is your man.

Lesson of the day... Last week's Lisbie aberration aside, there is clearly some as yet unnamed law of physics that dictates that Orient players will never, ever score when in a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper. Three chances went begging today (Dawson twice and Lisbie once) which suggests that in future the Os might considering preserving energy by simply booting the ball back into their own half of the field. Cut out the middle man.

18 comments:

I was at the match. I think you conveniently forget that Leyton didn't have a clue up front. Your players were crossing the ball out into the stand at least 3 times. You defended well, I'll give you that but that's not going to keep you up! You had one clear and easy chance and you took it. Fair enough. But a very uninspiring display by the O's. The Shakers were toothless, that's our problem.

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The opinions on this Leyton Orient blog are generally based on no actual research. When I write stuff I frequently distort the truth, exaggerate and contradict myself, mostly in an effort to construct metaphors around inanimate objects or to make cheap gags about the players. Sorry about that.

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